


Wake Up

by ffonippop



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Scandal In Belgravia, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Premonitions, Sort Of, The Great Game, a scandal in belgravia mention, but also he doesn't?, irene adler knows something you don't, irene is a chaos goddess, irene is all knowing, its complicated, set during asib, sherlock knows something, the great game mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21907189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffonippop/pseuds/ffonippop
Summary: Sherlock Holmes dreams of her sometimes.They're not quite good dreams, no. But they aren't bad dreams either. They're ominous and calm, they're vague and warning, a cautious kiss to test his senses.He dreams of her sometimes, and it is only later when he actually meets her.
Relationships: Adlock - Relationship, Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this more for me than anyone else but i am still a bitch for attention so uh pls enjoy thanks i love u

The first time he dreams of her, he's playing the Great Game, just hours before Jim Moriarty showed himself to Sherlock, hours before John Watson is strapped to a bomb. He has no knowledge of who she is and he is caught off guard.

He was in the comfort of his sitting room in 221B when the detective had closed his eyes, briefly, very briefly. But when his eyelashes parted to reveal pale blue irises, Sherlock Holmes was not in the safety of his own home. He wasn't leaning back on the couch with his mobile in his hand, aimlessly scrolling through the unopened emails popping up on his phone. 

In fact, he was nowhere in particular. 

Darkness surrounded him in every possible direction, an inky sea of black without end or a visible beginning. Sherlock stared down at his arms, paper white and lined with dull blue veins. It looked as if the colour had been sucked out of the world-that-wasn't-quite-a-world and yet here he was, staring at the never ending darkness, completely and utterly aware.

The detective frowned, stepping forward only to stumble due to the lack of a visible floor. It seemed to move with his steps, squirm oddly under his feet like it was alive only to stiffen again the moment he became aware of it. He crouched down and knocked on the ink platform experimentally. It was solid, and nothing happened. 

It took longer than he'd admit before he got to the conclusion, but after examining his surroundings, Sherlock promptly concluded he was in a dream, something particularly odd because he never really remembered his dreams, much less stayed aware when he was dreaming in them. 

"This is a strange thing to dream," he lamented out loud, a bit annoyed that he couldn't find a way to wake up but nonetheless thankful that he was in a dream, because that meant he was asleep and resting in the real world. It had been ages since he'd rested....

It was then when, in the corner of his eye, just barely in his peripheral vision, he saw her. 

She rose out of the not-quite-floor like a sea serpent rising from midnight waters, the darkness sliding off her as she did, clad in nothing more than a thin black veil of somewhat transparent fabric.

Her most prominent feature was the blood red on her lips, a splash of colour over her the rest of her skin, which was just as ivory painted as Sherlock's very own. The colour of temptation on her lips seemed to be the only colour in the dream, and while it was odd, it seemed fitting for some unknown reason. Though he didn't know why, he couldn't imagine the woman outside of the red lipstick.

Sherlock blinked. "Hello." It was a hollow greeting, more confused than anything. He was unsure of what to do with himself, what to say. 

She blinked back, her red lips curving to a minuscule smirk. Something about her didn't seem quite so human, like one of those fae Sherlock had read about somewhere. When she smiled, her teeth flashed white, just a little too sharp for Sherlock's liking. Her eyes narrowed on him, and the pupils looked to be a little too dilated to be human.

"Hello," she returned, her voice alluring and mysterious.

Though Sherlock knew her voice to sound well and articulated, trying to recall what it sounded like was an unsuccessful feat. Despite having just heard the woman speak, Sherlock had already forgotten what she sounded like.

He opened his mouth to talk, but found that he couldn't. 

"You've been here a while." The woman cocked her head to the side as she let the words fall out of her mouth in a siren-like harmony, luring Sherlock in, forcing him to lean forward with intrigue. "You'd better wake up before you forget how to."

Sherlock frowned. "I'm sorry?"

She smirked, and her lips glistened. The thought of the red on them being real blood vaguely crossed Sherlock's head, but it didn't unsettle him, like the blood was meant to be there.

The woman's lips parted, and in a voice that belonged in a melancholic church choir, she said, "No you aren't."

Sherlock woke up gasping.

* * *

The second time he dreams of her, they still haven't met. He had, however, done his research prior in an effort to find out _who_ she was exactly.

This time, she didn't rise from the floor. She'd just... _appeared_. And though her features seemed more human than before, something about her still seemed so unsettling and alien. 

"You're back," she said, her voice still as entrancing and intriguing as it was back when he had dreamed her for the first time, words spilling from her tongue like water flowing down a stream. "Do you know how to wake up?"

Sherlock frowned. "No," he answered truthfully.

Admitting such a thing would normally be hard for the clever detective, but he found no reason to lie. After all, he reminded himself, everything that was happening was all in his head. But the itching feeling of not knowing was still there, so after a pause, he added, "But I'll figure it out."

She laughed. "You're sure of yourself."

"And you're Irene Adler." Sherlock let himself take a step towards her, but he couldn't take another, because the moment he lifted his foot, he found the black floor trapped it back on the ground, sticking him in place. He hummed in displeasure. 

Irene Adler tilted her head curiously reminding the detective of a doe in the wild, her gaze flicking to his caught foot amusedly before meeting his eyes again.

"Been on my website recently?" She smirked. "Should I be expecting you to become a customer?"

Sherlock almost smiled. "I was curious," he stated. "I don't dream often. Certainly not of strangers." 

Irene grinned again - the same sharp-toothed grin that almost signified danger, anticipation. "How do you know?" She asked sharply, her unsettling, inhuman grin pressed tightly on her lips. 

"Know what?"

She stepped towards him, the back of her see-through robe waving behind her, touched by an invisible breeze, stopping roughly a yard away. "That this isn't a nightmare." 

Sherlock's breath hitched. "I don't get nightmares."

She laughed at that, the sound deep and echoing and so, so amused. "Then why are you _here_ , Sherlock?" 

Sherlock's eyes narrowed on the woman, taking in her confident posture, her inhuman features. He took a deep breath. "Because you're important, somehow."

" _Men_ ," she remarked teasingly, rolling her eyes back with a laugh that rolled her head back too, exposing her pale neck and clavicle. "Always the same lines. 'You're the most important thing to me,' 'You're so beautiful.' Get some new material."

"That's not what I meant," the detective protested with a dry glare. "You _know_ what I meant."

She met his glare with a smile, almost innocent if not the predatory shine of her eyes. "I know."

"Tell me why you're important," he ordered, getting increasingly irritated. When she met his look with a blank and knowing grin, he sighed in frustration. "The human mind is a precious thing, Miss Adler, and connections are made even when you don't know it. There's a connection here _somewhere_ , I _just have to find it_."

She'd stopped smiling now, as if sensing his growing frustration, but her voice was still laced with soft amusement and Sherlock briefly wondered if the amusement was ever going to leave her lips. 

A chaos goddess, Sherlock realized. That's what Irene Adler reminded him of. A goddess of chaos from those old Ancient Greek stories his brother was always so fond of. A goddess that died a long time ago. 

He frowned. Or maybe she reminded him of _the East Wind_. The divine entity Mycroft loved to tell stories about, the one Mycroft laughed about and warned would come for him one day. His demise.

The Woman's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Let me know if you figure it out."

Sherlock's eyebrows furrowed in mild confusion. "Wh... What?"

She chuckled. "Let me know. If you figure it out - why I'm important, that is. How could the silly dominatrix possibly be connected to the posh detective?" She waved a dismissive hand in the air, summoning a deceptively sweet laugh from her throat. "We've got this entire dream for you to try and figure me out, Sherlock."

She took a step towards the detective, getting ever so closer, so close that Sherlock could almost feel the heat radiating from her body, almost feel the warmth of her hand from where it hovered in over his cheek.

But when she touched her hand to his cheek, it wasn't warm at all. In fact, it was as cold as ice, so freezing that it felt as if her hand was absorbing the heat from his skin, numbing him with cold.

Her next words, she whispered. "You just have to do one thing for me... remember to wake up."

His eyes opened almost instantly, and when they did, he was no longer with the figment of Irene Adler his mind had created for him, but at his room, staring absently at the periodic table placed high on his wall. 

It would be weeks before he'd see her again.

* * *

The next time he sees her, she is not a dream. 

She's real and standing absolutely stark naked in front of him in one moment and standing above him in his coat and a syringe in the next. He'd met her with recognition in his eyes, having recalled her from his dreams, but it wasn't quite the dream. 

The longer he stared, the more differences he found between Adler the person and Adler the dream. 

Adler the person was stunning, but he found she was much more human than Adler the dream. Her pupils weren't so heavily dilated, so you could see the pretty blue much clearer. When she grinned, she was just as secretive and self assured as she was in his dreams, but her teeth weren't so exaggeratedly pointed. She was ethereal, but _so_ so human. 

Adler the dream also spoke differently. For one, Adler the dream called him by his first name while the person who sat cross-legged in front of him without so much as a thread on called Sherlock "Mr. Holmes." 

The person in front of him was shorter, too, but then again, the only references his head had when it came up with Irene Adler in his dreams came from the photographs on Adler's website, and people often looked taller in their pictures. He looked taller in pictures.

He's shocked with how similar their personalities are. His mind had created the near-perfect replica of a woman he'd never met until now.

There are differences between the women, yes, but when Sherlock dreams of her again the very same night they met, the differences are no longer there.

It's like his head improved on her image based on new information, because when he fell asleep and Adler appeared, she looked so much realer, rid of the comically dilated pupils, rid of the sharpened teeth, and about three inches shorter than she was in their last meeting in his head.

Around the pair, the world had changed as well. It was no longer a never ending sea of black and invisible floors. They were in Belgravia, standing in front of each other in Irene's sitting room, but it wasn't quite Belgravia.

There was carpet, for one. The floor wasn't hardwood like it was in real life, but a plush white carpet Sherlock was sure he'd seen before in some posh little magazine Molly had been flipping through during break time at the morgue. The room was accented with loads more gold than in real life, too, as if to bathe the pair in golden light. 

It was a good change of setting for the detective, who had grown distasteful of the ink black world. After a quick scan of the surroundings, though, Sherlock turned back to Irene, focusing on her more intently. 

"The photographs lied about your height," Sherlock brought up conversationally, casually, because he was no longer cautious of the figment of Irene Adler and had come to know her as a part of his mind, another character in his vast mind palace.

Irene smiled. She wasn't wearing the see-through fabric anymore, instead clad in Sherlock's coat, the very same one hanging on the detective's door outside of his dream, the very same one he had lent to the real Irene Adler.

"Did my seeming taller intimidate you?" She asked playfully, teasingly, as she sat herself down on the sofa and crossed her legs.

Sherlock scoffed. "Hardly."

Irene laughed. "You don't have to lie to me, Sherlock." Her voice was low and secretive when she said that, like they were exchanging words that only they knew, that the rest of the world would never hear.

"I'm not lying."

"How would I know?"

"Because you're me." It was the first time he'd ever really acknowledged that. He shrugged. "Well, I created you, at least. You _know_ I'm telling the truth."

Irene grinned. "I do," she admitted. "But you created me to contradict you, Sherlock."

And while Sherlock was annoyed, he was also quite amused. They stayed in a comfortable silence for a while before Sherlock cut through it with his voice. 

"You made a mistake," he stated, causing Irene to raise a skeptical brow. 

"And what would that be?" 

"She doesn't call me 'Sherlock.' "

Irene gave him a lopsided grin. "That was intentional."

"Why?"

"Because how would you know if I'm real or not if I don't give you something to tell us apart with, _Mr. Holmes?_ "

And it's scary how she's right, because the moment she'd said that, Sherlock's distinction between reality and dream blurred just the slightest bit. 

Irene frowned. "You're forgetting."

"Forgetting what?"

"How to wake up."

Irene smiled sadly at Sherlock, almost apologetically as she stood up and stepped forward to Sherlock. "Remember something for me, Sherlock: the only reason I haven't betrayed you here is because you created me. I am self-preservation first and collateral damage second. Irene Adler is not one of your creations. Be wary."

Irene placed her hand on his cheek, no longer cold but rather warm. "Wake up, Mr. Holmes."

He didn't remember when dream shifted back into reality. He remembered a shift, yes. One moment he was in a sitting room in not-quite-Belgravia, and the next, he was in the field of his latest crime mystery, hand in hand with the Woman who solved it in front of him. 

He remembered how to wake up.

But he did not remember her warning.

* * *

It is a death and a revival later when she appeared again in his head. 

They are in Mycroft's office this time, but the light of the fire on the fireplace next to his desk burns angrily, harshly, crackling like cracked knuckles. She's leaned against the menacing desk, arms crossed and a sad smile on her blood red lips, an odd match with her defiant eyes. Irene was no longer in Sherlock's coat, now dressed in the very same dress she'd worn when he cracked her camera phone's password. 

She opened her mouth, and the words that came out of it were not like the siren song words from a church choir like they were when he first dreamed of her. Her words are voiced confidently and harshly, comparable to a quick and biting whip that licked Sherlock's back with anger. 

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return," Irene stated with a smile too sharp and her eyes too attentive. "To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy’s first law of Equivalent Exchange."

She is referencing them, he realized. Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps it was victory was what was obtained. Perhaps the Woman was the equal value. Perhaps.

Whatever it is, it cannot change the fact that Sherlock cannot look at her the way he did when he last saw Irene Adler. With his expression cleared and his voice apathetic, he stated dully, "You betrayed me."

Irene frowned at that accusation, abandoning leaning on the desk in favor of stomping over to Sherlock, stopping roughly a foot in front of the detective to stand menacingly, intimidatingly. If he were any other person, he'd have shrunk away, took a step back. But he was Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes was a prideful creature. "You _forgot_."

He scoffed. "What could I have forgotten? To wake up? You going to force me awake again?"

She exhaled sharply. "Forgotten to be wary, Sherlock. Mycroft said it best, should you like to recall that memory." 

Sherlock frowned. 

Irene laughed bitterly. "Here, I'll help."

Irene flicked a hand and on the desk of the office, Mycroft appeared, his expression the very same from long ago. With a glare at Sherlock, the figure of his brother recited, " _The promise of love, the pain of loss-_ "

"Stop that."

Irene raised an eyebrow. "Am I hitting a nerve?"

"You're on my last one. _Stop it_." 

They paused for a while, and Sherlock refused to believe he controlled the pause, considering how it was all in his head. He refused to believe that he needed a pause. The silence stretched for a long moment before Irene was speaking again.

"She _was_ lying, you know." Irene looked thoughtfully at Sherlock, her eyes twinkling with silent knowledge. 

Sherlock resisted the urge to frown. "About what?"

"You know what. She's sentimental. It's not love, I can assure that, and you can, too. Maybe it was interest at one point. But now it's just infatuation."

"And why should I care what she felt?"

Adler laughed. "I have no idea, but you do."

"I _don't_."

Irene rolled her eyes and stepped back to the desk. "Either way," Irene sighed. "I feel bad for Adler."

Sherlock followed her. "Why? Because you were built in her image?"

"Don't be stupid, Sherlock, the only narcissistic prick in this dream is you." She wrinkled her nose. "No, because she'll be locked in a terrorist cell in two weeks."

Sherlock froze. "Terrorist cell? Who said anything about a terrorist cell?"

Irene stared at him, long and hard. "You did." She scooted over to the detective, touching a finger to the tip of his nose before tapping his temple. "Information's all in your head, you just haven't figured it out yet. Happy deducing, Mr. Holmes."

Irene's voice lowered to a soft whisper as she brought her lips closer to his face. "Save her." With a kiss to his forehead, Irene Adler smiled, sharp and biting, her eyes like a whip and her voice like a stream of mind numbing cold water. "Wake up."

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if it's bad xgdvvxs ive had an uh not /bad/ day, just like,,,,, a /day/ and everything i make is kinda bad right now. uh idk i really hope u enjoyed this is kinda based off of that one tumblr post where up dreamt of a fish who went "you've been here a while better wake up before u forget how to" so i cant take credit for that awesome line
> 
> speaking of tumblr i have that.  
> my main is @skittlesun  
> ( https://www.tumblr.com/blog/skittlesun)  
> my sherlock incorrect quotes blog is @incorrectbbcsherlock  
> (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/incorrectbbcsherlock)
> 
> it would help if u followed.  
> pls review i hope u enjoyed i love u ur pretty great for reading okok thats it bye I love U  
> -alex


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